In the period during the Education Days the applicants should be completing their self assessment forms to avoid delays in the preparation of the Home Study Report.
While SENAME does try to take the length of time a couple has been waiting into consideration, their priority is to find the most appropriate couple on the register to meet the needs of a particular child.
Therefore, a couple who are deemed to potentially be an ideal match for a particular child may have a significantly shorter waiting time.
Most applications are for children aged 5-6 years of age therefore an application for a child in this age range will be up against a larger pool of applicants which may mean a longer waiting time.
If the application is for children aged 7 years and older or for special needs children, e.g. children with a physical disability, SENAME have indicated that the waiting time is likely to be significantly shorter than the average.
Your preference of gender may also affect the amount of time you must wait for a referral. Applicants who have no gender preference are likely to have a shorter waiting time than applicants who have specified a preferred gender.
As of mid 2008 there were 133 applications to adopt on SENAME’s register.
SENAME processes approximately 90 -100 intercountry adoptions per annum. This is approximately 20% of the domestic adoptions in Chile.
Allow 3 weeks, however this may differ depending on the circumstances (such as the region the child is from and everything going smoothly). Applicants must expect not to work to a fixed time frame and therefore time away from work needs to be organised accordingly. Travel tickets need to be flexible with no charge for alterations. The applicants’ budget also needs to be flexible to cover any contingencies.
The longer applicants are in Chile the more time they will have for attachment with their child away from work commitments, school etc. It is an opportunity to find out more about the child's birthplace and culture and to develop (and hopefully maintain) a stronger relationship with the child’s principal caregiver(s) which will be valuable later when the child begins to enquire of his or her origins.
This time may be less depending on how long it takes for the relevant Government departments to process the change in identification and issue a passport.
